Arion.Net is where I post random thoughts once in a while and document some of the projects and hacks I've worked on in my spare time over the years. All opinions posted here are my own and don't represent those of my employer.

An XBOX's Full Potential

Microsoft's XBOX provides a great
platform for the inner hardware-hacker in me. But by 'hardware-hacker' I
mean taking stuff apart and soldering a couple wires. I'm definitely not
a real hardware hacker, like some of the guys I know. However, I do
enjoy playing around with a piece of hardware in the
take-it-apart-and-then-reassemble-it Lego mentality.

After reading some articles a couple years back about how Andrew
"bunnie" Huang first reverse engineered the
XBOX and all of the cool
things that were possible with an 'unlocked' system, I decided to buy
one and hack it. This involved buying a 'modchip' (I choose the
Xecuter model) and
soldering it to the XBOX's motherboard. Doing the actual soldering was
pretty straightforward, except one wire that was very difficult (the
infamous
d0
point).

A hacked XBOX allows you to run non-Microsoft approved/certified
home-brew software (even
Linux!). Over the past few
years, several fantastic programs have been written to be run on
modified XBOXs. My favorite is the XBOX Media
Center (XBMC),
which turns an XBOX into an all-in-one multimedia center for viewing
pictures, movies, listening to music, and so forth. I like XBMC so much
that I went out an purchased and modified a second XBOX to put in my
bedroom instead of buying a normal DVD player. Hell, how else could I
get a network-enabled CD/DVD/AVI/DivX/MPEG/MP3/Picture viewer for about
\$180?

I've helped a bunch of my friends acquire and mod XBOXs as well. After
most people see the cool things that can be done with an unlocked XBOX
they usually break down and buy one and modify it. Since my soldering
skills are pretty weak, my friend Wayne has helped with a lot of the
soldering, since what takes me about 30 minutes only takes him about 30
seconds. The picture for this article shows one of my XBOXs and my
friend Andrew's XBOX, after it had been successfully modified.